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Meeting the woman behind ‘How To Tell A Man By His Shoes,’ 20 year old first time author Kathryn Eisman (pictured here), I had secretly hoped that there would be something about this successful model and final-year communications student that I would find disappointing. You know, that she had a really bad accent, was a total airhead or worse, a prima-donna brat. How wrong could I be! As we relaxed into our cappuccinos I became acutely aware that I really wanted her to like my shoes. By the end of the interview, I wished she was my best friend. Kathryn Eisman – gorgeous, funny, smart. Oh, and she has the amazing ability to read a man’s personality by his shoes. Read on?’I’ve got this theory, that a lot women share, and that is that you can tell a man by his shoes,’ says first time author and self-confessed footwear fetishist Kathryn. ‘And I have girlfriends who have gone out on dates with men and simply wouldn’t go out on another date with them because they just could not get past how hideous the shoes were,’ she laughs. ‘So I thought it would be a great thing to have a manual for decoding the male species from their footwear,’ she says revealing the reasons behind her first literary outing.

The book, a pint-sized guide featuring 45 shoe styles complete with relevant personality assessment was also illustrated by Kathryn herself, remarkably, the shoes in most cases drawn from memory. This is obviously the work of someone deeply in love with shoes. Are we talking Imelda here?

‘I’ve got a lot of shoes!’ she admits. ‘At one stage I thought ‘Oh, I can buy this because it will be a tax deduction because I’m writing a book about shoes. But I’ve since found out that that’s not the case. Serves me right!’ she laments. ‘I’ve got a lot of shoes, 40 at least. I went to New York last year and came home with 9 pairs of shoes. I was there for 3 months. There was a suitcase primarily for shoes and I thought ‘If I lose that I’ll kill myself!’ she laughs.